Mesa County’s coroner has identified the 31-year-old woman shot dead in Clifton Saturday night. Aleksandr Kolpakov is being held on a murder charge in connection with the case.Heather Anable died of gunshot wounds to her neck and chest, authorities say. Her death has been ruled a homicide.
“The family has asked our office to relay a message to the media to please respect their privacy in their time of grief,” the Mesa County Coroner’s Office said in a news release.
Kolpakov, a 29-year-old of Clifton, is being held at the county’s jail on suspicion of second-degree murder.
The shooting happened about 9:30 p.m. Saturday on the 3200 block of 1/2 Lombardy Lane where deputies, called out on reports of several gunshots, found the woman dead outside of a home. Kolpakov was taken into custody.
“When deputies arrived they found a deceased adult female outside the residence,” the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. “An adult male suspect was taken into custody at the same location and he was transported to St. Mary’s Hospital for an evaluation.”
Mesa County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Henry Stoffel said over the weekend that an investigation is ongoing, but the department is not looking for any other suspects.Details in the slaying, including what allegedly motivated the shooting, have not been released.
“It’s been sealed,” said Megan Terlecky, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office, referencing court documents in the case.

While authorities in Colorado would not discuss the motive, both the victim and the suspect had substantial presences in the online atheist community, and Kolpakov was particularly notorious:

The Colorado-based YouTuber, who published numerous rants against critics of feminism, and long-winded response videos towards YouTubers on the other side of the political spectrum, always stood beneath the shadow of more prominent male feminists in the community.
At one point, he even shared his two cents on the GamerGate controversy in 2015 to denounce gamers for “misogyny,” but the series of tweets, like most of his videos, failed to pick up steam.

Heather Anable was a feminist YouTuber who was murdered by her lover and fellow YouTuber Aleksandr Kolpakov (AKA SkepticFeminist). Aleksandr, who according to my sources may have been a veteran who suffered from PTSD, was doing shrooms [psilocybin mushrooms, a powerful hallucinogenic drug] with Heather on Saturday night, when he became obsessed with the notion that Heather was trying to kill him and that she had poisoned him. Feminist Laura Athena, another member of Aleksander’s polyamorous harem, was apparently skyping with Heather and Aleksandr during their mushroom trip, when Aleksander started freaking out and making bizarre accusations against Heather. Both girls attempted to calm Aleksandr down, but he was inconsolable with fear and rage. At around 9:30 PM, the skype call dropped. Shortly thereafter, Aleksandr shot Heather Anable multiple times in the neck and chest. With fresh bullet wounds, she fled from her apartment, still scrambling to escape — but she didn’t make it far. She collapsed in the parking lot and died scared and alone there, bleeding on the cement.

So the atheist feminist had a “polyamorous harem,” according to Thomas Kirk, but had a bad trip on psilocybin, freaked out in a paranoid rage, and shot his girlfriend to death — allegedly, I hasten to add. That’s an unofficial secondhand version of the story, and authorities in Colorado have neither confirmed nor denied Thomas Kirk’s tale.

Generally speaking, firearms and hallucinogenic drugs are a dangerous combination. Adding feminism, atheism and polyamory to the combination probably doesn’t make it safer. Some people just have to learn these lessons the hard way. Be safe out there, kids. Just say “no.”